


Labor of Love

by Ewebie



Category: British Actor RPF, Tom Hiddleston Fandom
Genre: F/M, Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 14:09:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1188129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ewebie/pseuds/Ewebie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Learning your lines is hard. And after a rough day, sometimes you need some incentive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Labor of Love

It had been a long day. A long, painful, lonely, desperate day at work. It was the kind of day that made you consider quitting your job, selling your flat, burning your useless things, and becoming one of those crazy people that live in a tree in the middle of the forest. Except, when women did that, they were always portrayed as witches that eat children… You weren’t really down for that. Not yet, at least. Give it time. You’ll get there soon enough.

You juggle the bag of groceries and your purse and your folio to dig the keys from your pocket. It’s an incredible balancing act, but a testament to how rubbish the day has been that simply opening the door was a tick in the win column. You kick the door closed behind you and set the bag of groceries on the kitchen countertop, retracing your steps to lock the door and dump your keys into the waiting bowl. You hang your trench on the waiting peg and sigh at its empty neighbor. He mustn’t be home yet. You go about the menial task of putting away the food, hoping he makes it home by the time you’re done, but no joy there.

In an effort to be productive, you open your folio, fishing around for the most pressing of paperwork, and the plastic binding of the thing splits and spills every last document onto the kitchen island and surrounding floor. A litany of muttered curses pours out of you as you glare at the offending, now useless bit of junk. Heaving a sigh, you step around the papers, pull a bottle of wine off the shelf and uncork it, pouring a generous glass for yourself. It seems the measured and reasonable response, all things considered.

As you take the first sip, you hear the scrape of wood on flagstone and the mess in the kitchen is all but forgotten. You kick off your heels and pad towards the terrace, peeking around the corner. Nothing could contain the soft sigh that escapes you, but you manage to mute it, keep it soft enough that he cannot hear you. Your first thought is that he looks as you feel; bad day all around. He’s sitting out on the veranda, immersed his latest script. His shirt is opened at the collar, sleeves rolled hastily past his elbows, and his hair is disheveled from running his fingers through it in frustration. Even the way he’s perched on the edge of his chair screams vexation louder than the fingers pressed into his forehead. Before you can move any closer, he shuts his eyes and sighs angrily.

You close the distance quickly and quietly, reaching his side before he’s opened his eyes, before he’s had the chance to recognize your arrival, before he can hide the annoyance painted on his face. You pass behind him, trailing your fingers up his arm and along his shoulder in a smooth caress. “Bad day, huh?”

He jumps slightly. Startled enough to shift upright and slide his chair back, but not scared enough to turn. He knows your voice. He hums an agreement as you take another sip of your wine, carding your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. “I don’t think I can take another moment of this,” he mutters, waving weakly at the script. “How was your day?”

You take a large swig of your wine and reach around him to place it on the table next to his work. “Desperate,” you whisper in his ear, rising again and pressing your thumbs into the bundle of muscles on either side of his shoulders.

He groans and relaxes back into the chair, letting you firmly massage the tension from his shoulders and neck. You work your hands across his upper back, his upper arms, and even slide the flats of your palms down to his lower back, dragging your fingertips up to his neck before pressing your thumbs into the knots in his neck, moving up to the base of his skull, and fanning your fingers out into his hair. You alternate between massaging his scalp and scratching along his hairline until he drops his head back against your stomach with a sigh, “You are far too good at that.”

You caress his temples, the lines of his jaw, the sides of his neck, and slide your palms inside his shirt to stroke his chest. “Do you want me to stop?”

He removes your right hand brushes his lips over your pulse. “I want you to come here,” he whispers, drawing you around to his front. He shifts so you stand between his legs and rests his palms on your hips. “What on earth is this?”

You raise one brow. “I believe it’s called a skirt.” You feel his fingers trace the seams down your thighs and smirk. You’d had a meeting, formal presentation, you’d dressed in a power suit, and you knew the black pencil skirt looked good. “Why? Don’t you like it?”

He gazes up at you, “I can’t figure out how you’ve fit into it. Are you sure it wasn’t painted on?”

You feel his fingertips playing with the hem at your knees. “There are zips in the back,” you murmur, resting your hands on his shoulders and leaning down to brush a kiss across his forehead.

“Oh?” his thumbs tuck under the fabric as his fingers fan out along the backs of your knees. “That would be the easy way out, wouldn’t it?” You love the way he’s looking at you; his eyes like a second caress. He inches your skirt higher and you’re torn between the cheek of him and the fact that your skirt is too tight for you to sit on his lap. “How on Earth do you walk in something like this?” he muses.

“With a pair of obscenely high heels,” you retort, sliding your hands from his shoulders to the buttons of his shirt. A smile blooms across his face as the image plants itself in his mind.

His fingers pause as he stumbles across the suspenders holding up your stockings and he glances down at the line of the skirt. “Now how were you hiding those?”

You can’t hide your amusement any more than he can hide his arousal, and you hitch your skirt the last inch higher to be able to move. With one hand on the back of the chair and your other on his chest, you press him back to garner space and settle with your knees on either side of his hips. The chair is just wide enough that you fit, but it’s more a testament to his narrow hips than the chair. “There was no hiding,” you purr as shift slightly, for comfort of course. “Now, tell me about this play you’re in.”

He clears his throat, his fingers clenching against your hips in an effort to still you. “Othello,” he croaks out, distracted by your fingers as you run them up and down his chest.

“You’ve done Othello before,” you scold, taking his face between your palms and tilting it up to meet yours. “Why the bother? What’s the role?”

The blue of his eyes is darker than usual, crystal clear and wanting. “Iago.”

You raise a brow. “Does everyone think you’re a villain now?”

He chuckles and you feel it down to your toes. He did that on purpose. You shift your position slightly and his grin falters. “There are a lot of lines.”

You lean forward and kiss him lightly, “That has never stopped you before.”

He groans and closes his eyes, letting you rest your forehead against his. “It’s the soliloquy, the long monologues. I keep confusing my queues for Cassio’s.”

Self-pity has never suited him, and you’re not about to start letting him feel sorry for himself. “I’m going to play you the world’s smallest violin.” That draws a laugh from him and you smile. “Who is your Othello?”

“Idris.”

“And Desdemona?”

“Natalie.”

“Who got Cassio this time?”

“Benedict.”

You let out a low whistle. “Remind me to book my tickets early.”

He smacks your bum playfully. “There won’t be a show if I can’t learn my lines.”

“Oh, you need help with your lines, then?” you press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, holding him firmly to keep him from chasing you. “Someone to keep you focused?” You kiss the other corner of his mouth.

His hands slide up from your hips to caress your back. “Please,” he whispers.

Your lips hover just over his. “Tush,” you whisper, planting a hand on his chest, keeping his back pressed into the chair frame. “Never tell me; I take it much unkindly, That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse, As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.” You wet your lips and wait as his brain catches up with his mouth.

“How do you know the play?” his brow furrows.

The corner of your mouth tugs back for a moment. “We did a version in high school. Now, your line, sir.”

“’Sblood, but you will not hear me: If ever I did dream…” You let your free hand wander, your fingers stroking down his neck and across his chest. He swallows heavily. “Did dream of such a matter, Abhor me.”

“Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.” He sighs through his nose as you wait for him to start his monologue. “In thy hate,” you repeat, nipping at his lower lip.

“Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city, In personal suit to make me his lieutenant, Off-capp’d to him,” He swallows as you slowly kiss your way along his jawline. “To him: and, by the fair of man, I know my price, I am worth no worse a place: But he; as loving his own pride and… and purposes…”

A smile crosses your lip as he loses his concentration again. You hover over the sharp angle of his jaw, “And purposes?”

His hands slide slowly down your back as he picks back up. “Evades them, with a bombast circumstance, Horribly stuff’d with epithets of war; And in conclusion, Nonsuits my mediators; for ‘Certes,’ says he, ‘I have already chose my officer.’ And what was he? Forsooth,” his fingers flex against your lower back as your lips close around his earlobe. “A great arithmetician, One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, A fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife; That never set a squadron in the field, Nor the division of a battle knows…” He sucks in a sharp breath when you nip playfully at his ear, teeth barely grazing the vulnerable flesh.

“Knows,” you whisper in his ear.

“More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric, Wherein the toged consuls can propose, As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practice, Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election: And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof, At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other…” He gulps as you begin to kiss and nibble your way along his neck. “Other grounds, Christian and heathen, must be be-lee’d and… and calm’d, By debitor and creditor: this counter-caster, He, in good time, must his lieutenant be, And I—G-god bless the mark!—his Moorship’s ancient.”

Your lips press against the hollow in the soft underside of his jaw. “By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman,” you murmur.

“Why, there’s no remedy; ‘tis the curse of service,” he voice wavers as you suck gently on the skin where his neck and shoulder meet. “Preferment goes by letter and affection, And not by old gradation, where each second, Stood heir to the first. Now, s-s-sir,” he grasps your hips and pulls you forward, pressing himself against you. “Sir be judge yourself, Whether I in any just term am affined, To love the Moor…. Dear God, if you’re leaving a hickey, so help me…”

You rock your hips forward and snap your back straight, capturing his face again, your fingers stretching back toward his hairline. “I would not follow him then.”

“O, sir, content you; I follow him to serve my turn upon him:” his eyes flutter shut as you run your thumb slowly along the boundary of his lower lip. “We-we cannot all be masters, nor all masters, Cannot be truly follow’d. You shall mark, Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,” he makes an attempt to bite the tip of your thumb and you give a small tisking noise, nipping his lower lip in punishment. “That, that, that doting on his own obsequious bondage.” You watch him carefully as you stroke one hand down his neck and chest, tugging his shirt free from his trousers and making quick work of the buttons. “Wears out his time… Much, much like his, his master’s ass,” he releases a groan as your fingers find the sensitive skin below his belly button.

You watch him pant for a moment, the combination of his utterly debauched appearance, the aroused flush in his face, and the deep, languid tone of his voice reciting poetry has you more excited than you can recently remember. “His master’s ass?” you prompt him, the humor evident in your voice.

He closes his eyes tightly for a moment as if mustering his resolve. When he opens them again, the lust is unmistakable, as is the promise of retribution. “His master’s ass,” he echoes firmly. “For nought but provender, and when he’s old, cashier’d: Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are, Who, trimm’d in forms and visages of duty, Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves, And, throwing but shows of service on their lords-“ His voice catches as you stroke him through his trousers and he captures both of your wrists firmly to stop you. “You are insufferable,” he hisses, kissing you firmly.

You break free of the kiss, but not his firm grip on your wrists. You shake your head slowly and in a pique of agitation he passes both of your arms behind you and pins them at the small of your back with one large palm. “Their lords?” you cock one brow.

He groans and drops his forehead against your chest. For a moment, you wonder if he does so out of exasperation or to simply look down your top, but it doesn’t matter as his breath raises goosebumps across your cleavage. “Do well thrive by them and when they have lined, their coats, Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul; And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir, It is as sure as you are Roderigo, Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago: In following him, I follow but myself;” he steals a kiss to the side of your breast, the week long scruff tickling your skin; you shift your hips unthinkingly. “H-heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so, for my peculiar end: For when my outward action doth demonstrate, The native act and figure of my heart, In compliment extern, ‘tis not long after, But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve, For daw to peck at: I am not what I am.”

He looks up at you and you lick your lips slowly and purposefully. “What a full fortune does the thicklips owe, If he can carry’t thus!” You feel his hand clench around your wrists, his other abandoning your hip to tangle in your hair. “Come on,” you whisper. “To Brabantio.”

He presses his forehead to yours and grits his teeth. “Call up her father, Rouse him: make after him, poison his delight,” he sneaks a kiss, his lips lingering on yours. “Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen, And though he in a fertile climate dwell, Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy…” He kisses you again and you let him, his lips firm and demanding, the warm breadth of his chest pressed against you.

He tries to catch his breath and you’re back on the script, “though that his joy be joy…”

“Joy,” he echoes.

“Yet…”

“Yet,” he swallows heavily.

“Throw such changes…”

“Such changes of vexation on’t, As it may lose some colour.”

“Here is her father’s house; I’ll call aloud.”

“You’ll be crying out when I’m done with you,” he mutters against your neck.

You can’t hold back the laughter and once you’ve started, there’s no stopping. He joins in, unable to stay free from the mirth, releasing your wrists and wrapping his arms around you. You tip forward, resting your forehead on his shoulder as you both continue to giggle until your stomach hurts. When you finally manage to regain control of yourself, you sit up and wipe the tears from your eyes and smile broadly. “You’ll get there eventually.”

His belly laughter subsides into a chuckle and his smile changes ever so slightly. The happy crinkle is gone from the corners of his eyes, but his smile is wider, and in a flash you recognize the look. It’s his Loki smile, his Jaguar smile, his villain chuckle. And it’s both deeply sexy and slightly unnerving. You clear your throat, “Uh, Tom?”

You stifle a shriek as he rises suddenly, lifting you with a firm hand between your shoulder blades and the other generously cupping your ass through the skirt. “Now, you are done tormenting me.” You wrap your arms more securely around his neck as he starts to walk back inside.

“Wait, my wine!” you cry with a laugh.

He glances up at your face. “Forgive me, but your mouth is about to be otherwise occupied.”

The day was looking much, much better…


End file.
